


why won't you set me free

by Nielrian



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M, the AU absolutely nobody asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:14:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nielrian/pseuds/Nielrian
Summary: Superior pattern processing is the essence of the evolved human brain. It is one thing that separates humans (and human-adjacent aliens, it turns out) from lower life forms, their ability to recognize and accurately predict patterns.Another trait of highly evolved species? Hindsight.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 18
Kudos: 73





	why won't you set me free

**Author's Note:**

> i give my all now, can’t you see?  
> why won’t you set me free?  
> you got power, power  
> you got power over me
> 
> \---
> 
> [title from this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIXnT0s0f3s)
> 
> i am choosing not to use archive warnings, but please be aware that this fic contains warnings for consent issues and some implied fairly high grade nightmare fuel. be cautious.

—

Superior pattern processing is the essence of the evolved human brain. It is one thing that separates humans (and human-adjacent aliens, it turns out) from lower life forms, their ability to recognize and accurately predict patterns.

Another trait of highly evolved species? Hindsight.

—

“I have to go,” Alex says, and he’s already working the sleeve up and over his stump.

It’s been years since they last did this, since the last time he and Alex collided like opposing stormfronts, and somehow he’s surprised to find it still hurts like the first time to watch him go. Michael smothers down the familiar pang of some ugly emotion he feels bubbling in his gut; throws his arm over his face so he doesn’t have to watch it happen.

The door opens and he hears the birds chirping outside for only a moment before it rattles closed behind Alex, leaving only the scent of sweat and aftershave to indicate he’d ever been there at all.

“Of course you do.”

—

“I can’t stay the night.”

To Michael, Alex’s mouth tastes like cheap beer and even cheaper chinese takeout. He concentrates on unbuttoning the many, many buttons - stupid fiddly buttons - on Alex’s stupid still-mostly-on shirt, a pleasant buzz in his head and an even more pleasant buzz fluttering beneath his breastbone. He weighs the benefits and potential fallouts of just ripping the damn shirt open to expedite the process. The idea of Alex walking out of here with his clothing in tatters is, in a way, morbidly appealing. Let anyone who sees him know exactly what he’s been doing, if not who he’s been doing it with.

“Guerin.”

“Uh huh.” He mouths over the tender spot just behind Alex’s ear that always used to drive him wild.

“Guerin.”

Hands alight on his shoulders; strong, fine-boned fingers kneading into taught muscle. Those hands are steady, though, and the breath ghosting over his ear is somehow steadier still. Well, that won’t do at all. If Alex can still speak then he’s not doing his job. He redoubles his efforts.

“Guerin, I really do have to go,” Alex chuckles, voice an amused rumble, frustratingly unmoved. “I can’t stay.”

He pulls back just enough to see that Alex’s dark eyes are dilated, that thin ring of brown barely visible in the dim of the yard’s sparse, watery light. Their eyes meet, hold, and Alex’s gaze noticeably softens.

Michael clicks his tongue, runs a hand down those _damnably_ fiddly buttons. “Well, thankfully what I’ve got planned won’t take long.”

He drops to his knees.

—

“I, uh. I think I need a little time to process all of this.”

And there it is. The brink.

Alex had been preternaturally calm all afternoon, those intelligent eyes taking in everything and never once breaking stride. He’d listened quietly as Michael counted down foster care’s greatest hits. He’d watched as Michael dragged the Airstream out of the way, as he’d uncovered the bunker hatch, as he’d pulled the tarp off of the console like a magician’s tablecloth and… nothing. A part of him, that same part of him that used to miss curfew or slip a cuss just to see what he could get away with, that part of him writhes just below the surface, demands that he push just that little bit further, press just that little bit harder to find the break point.

The part that makes him leave.

Alex’s voice begins to waver, lose tempo, and he shifts, starts to shuffle toward the ladder behind him. He glances at his watch, makes as though to check his pocket. “The storm’s getting closer and I don’t really want to get snowed in here, so…”

For a man with a prosthetic leg he sure makes it up the ladder fast.

—

These are his people. They are his _family_. This is his _mother._ His powers desert him and he’s never felt more helpless in his entire life and he just wants this fucking glass to break, god, _please_ , he’ll never ask for anything ever again just _please_ -

Through the desperation clawing its way through him he’s peripherally aware of Alex appearing behind him. He’s shouting. Michael throws himself into the glass again. Again.

“- is not a suggestion, okay, nothing gets out alive!”

He rounds on the man.

“They’re my _family_ , Alex!”

Again. Again. _Again._

“Alright, _maybe_!” he shouts, and there’s something there, something changed, altered in his voice that makes Michael pause. He turns, and Alex is solidly planted, though it looks like his body is primed, every muscle probably pushing him to run, flee, escape from what in less than a minute will be a smoldering pile of rubble and rebar. But he stands firm, holding himself in place through what looks like sheer force of will.

“But you are _mine_!” His eyes are dark and deep, and as he stands there vibrating with some wild energy it’s as though those eyes are begging, pleading for Michael to see - what?

His mouth is moving automatically. “No. No, you gotta go, Alex.”

Alex’s jaw visibly clenches. Unclenches. A determined light sparks somewhere deep in those fathomless eyes and his face releases its tension all at once. He holds Michael’s gaze. “I don’t look away, Guerin.”

No, no that’s not right, that’s not -

Alex has to walk out of here. One of them needs to make it out alive and he can’t be responsible for Alex’s -

“Go! Get out of here, go! _I don’t love you_!” He screams. He screams anything he can think of. Cruel words. The most hurtful things he can scrape up from the recesses of his memories. Every raised voice, every beating, every time he woke up alone, he bleeds it all out between them. Anything, anything to get Alex to turn around right now and run for the door.

But he doesn’t. Tears track down Alex’s cheek unchecked, unnoticed. Something shudders over his expression and he’s speaking and -

And then his mother is there, and she’s warmth and sunlight and cool breezes and calm and _peace_ and -

And they’re running.

—

When he pulls into the drive the sun is hanging heavy in the sky, barely teasing the horizon line in the far distance. Alex’s Explorer is noticeably absent. He knows Alex has somewhat of a regular schedule these days, but he also knows all too well that he goes where the military tells him to go when they tell him to go there.

So he waits.

The sun slowly turns amber gold and starts to dip behind the sparse, scraggly trees. When it becomes clear that Alex won’t be arriving before the cows come home he drops the tailgate down, grabs his bottle of bottom shelf bourbon, and settles in for the long haul.

Eventually the twinkly little lights in Alex’s trees flick on, the timer marking the top of the hour. The driveway remains steadfastly empty. He’s not sure what super secret Air Force business keeps its airmen up so far past their bedtimes. Considering what he’s already seen he’s not sure he can handle knowing.

His back starts to ache and he’s pretty sure his legs are asleep but just when he’s considering giving it up as a lost cause the glare of headlights floods the driveway. Alex’s black SUV slows to a stop.

He can tell the moment Alex clocks him by the way his posture changes, from relaxed to alert in the span of a moment. Alex climbs out, straightens his uniform jacket, and everything else falls away as he comes toward Michael, a hitch in his step and a wry grin quirking his lips. The sight of that uniform never gets any easier to bear, and he’s momentarily distracted by how much he wants to tear it off of him. For how much he hates it, for how much he loves it, for a myriad of reasons each more complicated than the last and increasingly moot.

“What?” Alex says, and _damn_ those eyes.

Michael looks down, takes everything, every unfocused thought in his head and tamps it down hard, locks it away beneath the ever present haze of bourbon. Makes himself look into those eyes and feel nothing.

“The uniform, I never get used to it.”

—

The corridor smells musty, like dirt and disuse that he doubts any amount of elbow grease will truly ever get rid of. Despite what Liz says, she being ever the determined optimist.

The lab’s door clangs shut with a metallic groan that zips through Michael’s bones like a ricochet. Alex resets the locks and punches a code into the numeric keypad. The beep sounds like a retro 80’s arcade game.

“The system is coded only to me right now, but give me a day or so and I’ll take scans for you and have them coded in,” he jerks his head and Michael knows even in the dark that he’s indicating the hunk of metal on the wall that houses the honest-to-god retinal scanner. “The numeric code will change weekly. Keep track and don’t write it down anywhere.” He tips his head to the side. “Or text it to each other.”

He reaches for the handle, jerks on the door to make sure it’s not going anywhere, and pivots on his heels, military precise, to face them. “The secure server is open to you for your research findings and it’s backed up to my private server every twenty-four hours in case of any possible server failure. That passcode also changes every week, so stay on top of it. Understood?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Valenti chirps, offering a jaunty two fingered salute, and Alex scoffs and jostles his shoulder as he passes.

Liz reaches for him, clutches at the sleeve of his uniform as he overtakes her. “Thanks, Alex. Seriously.”

A glint of teeth in Alex’s answering smile. “Don’t mention it. Seriously. Don’t mention it. The facility is as secure as I can make it but I am breaking about fifteen federal laws here, so do try to keep it on the down low.” With that he leads their retreat down the corridor, the weak moonlight filtering through the open door turning him into one long shadow.

They file out and Alex locks the outer door behind them. He pulls his cap back out of a pocket of his uniform and puts it on, tugs the bill into place over his brow, casting his face into darkness, and cheekbones really have no right to look that good.

Alex pulls his sleeve back and pointedly checks his watch. “I have to get going, can you all find your way back okay? Remember, don’t -”

“Don’t put the location into GPS, we know. We got it,” Isobel says, and breezes past him, her heels digging crescents into the uneven dirt.

“I guess this meeting of the alien resurrection club is officially adjourned,” says Valenti, his grin extra white in the moonlight, and he playfully gives Alex’s shoulder a retaliatory clip as he makes to follow.

With a crisp nod Alex turns and goes. He doesn’t look back.

—

It wasn’t practical or even feasible to move the entire console to the new lab facility. Too big, too fragile, and too exposed. He brings pieces with him to work on while he’s there, but the main unit remains in its place beneath Sanders’ junkyard.

But now they need it, need more than what small pieces he can haul back and forth in a bag. He hasn’t been spending as much time in the fallout shelter since Caulfield, prefers the comparably open air of the library or lab instead these days.

Liz is tinkering with it, and as he watches she pulls her long hair over her shoulder as she leans over the table to examine one of the still-jagged edges more closely.

It’s quiet; he’d forgotten how quiet it can get underground, surrounded by sun-baked desert soil and concrete. If he strains he thinks he can make out the rumble of the rain hitting the packed earth above them.

From the far corner the soft _tickticktick_ of Alex’s fingers on laptop keys ceases, the only other sound in the room. Michael looks up and catches him rubbing his knee in little circles, face oddly blank, eyes half closed.

He doesn’t know what to call it, this quiet camaraderie. This impasse, this crossroads of emotion and logic. Alex is a calming, almost sedate presence in the lab, more static than Valenti tends to be and twice as quiet, unless he’s got something significant to say.

Alex’s laptop chirps a notification and he makes a tiny noise in his throat, focuses his attention back on the screen. His brow crinkles. He closes the laptop with a sharp _snick._

Liz’s head pops up. “What?”

“Tornado warning for Chaves County,” Alex says, and his hands are moving quickly to stow his laptop away.

Michael stumbles over that for only a moment. “Tornado?”

Liz pulls her phone out of her purse and thumbs the screen. She makes a sound of annoyance. “I don’t have service down here. I knew it was supposed to storm, but tornadoes? Close?”

“Looks like it,” Alex says, though his attention is on his gear bag as he starts to tuck items into it. “There’s a warning until late tonight.”

“Woah,” Michael says, because _woah_. “What are you doing?”

“Going home,” Alex says, and _uh nope,_ that’s not going to happen.

He opens his mouth to say so but Liz beats him to it. “Alex, this is probably the safest place we could be right now. I mean you can’t get much safer than a fallout shelter.”

Alex doesn’t turn to her and his hands don’t stop moving. “I’ll be fine.”

Michael can hear the echo of another conversation, a memory preserved in concrete and steel - _the storm’s getting closer and I don’t really want to get snowed in here_ -

“Alex, seriously,” Michael says, and he thinks he can still hear the rain coming down, even above the clatter of Alex’s scrambling hands. “You shouldn’t be driving in this, tornado or not.”

Things are - well not _good_ between them but he certainly thinks they’re above the level of _I’d rather die than be trapped here with you._

“I’ll be fine, but I need to go now.”

Liz meets his eyes and her brow wrinkles in confusion.

“Alex - ”

“Liz, it’s fine. I’ll be quick.” He slings his bag over his shoulder, tucks his phone into his back pocket.

“But your house is all the way across town and there’s really no reason - ”

Michael’s had enough.

“Yeah, you’re not going out in this. I’ve got a couple of cots down here and plenty of food if we have to hunker down, but you’re staying put.”

Alex turns to look at him, deliberate, and Michael could swear for a split second, for only the space of a blink, that his eyes flash with something vicious. His expression clears, and after a long moment he sits back down heavily on his chair, lets his bag drop at his side. He smiles disarmingly, and something uneasy starts to make itself known deep down in Michael’s gut.

“Okay, you win,” Alex says. “I can wait until it passes.”

Alex is back to work within a few minutes, fingers ticking restlessly across the keys, though louder and more staccato than before. Liz wanders back to the console and gets ready to repeat whatever test she’s been running. Michael goes back to his calculations. The bunker falls silent again as the moment is forgotten in favor of the work.

That’s the thing about patterns. They’re tricky. Just because you’re evolved enough to recognize one, predict one, doesn’t mean you can accurately determine causation.

Time ticks by and Alex grows increasingly more restless. At hour three, when the winds have kicked up so loudly it can clearly be heard above Liz’s tinkering, he sets his laptop aside and begins to pace, tracking the length of the back wall over and over. Michael recognizes stir craziness, he’s sat in the Chavez County jail cell enough times to know it when he sees it.

At first he doesn’t think anything of it, just mildly annoying background noise to filter out, until Alex stumbles, his hip catching the corner of the workbench and sending its contents clattering to the floor. He hears more than sees Liz startle behind him. Michael does it without thinking, reaches for him with his power, buffers him while he steadies himself. He doesn’t remember standing up, but when he lets his focus wane he’s somehow halfway across the room.

He eases back and Alex sags against the tabletop, his leg nearly going out from under him but he’s still moving, still trying to put one foot in front of the other. He feels it when Alex’s leg gives out, a clatter of metal on concrete that sets his teeth on edge. Alex is on the ground now but he’s still _moving._

“Woah, Alex, _chill_ ,” he says, and when Alex looks up there’s a line of sweat visible along his hairline, his chest heaving with forced breath. Liz makes a noise of concern and steps away from her experiment.

“Are you okay?” she asks, and takes an aborted step toward him as though she’s going to try and grab him. She hesitates though, her hands fluttering like she’s not sure if she should.

“I need to get out of here,” Alex gasps, and through his labored breaths his voice sounds strange, strained and wrecked.

“What, are you suddenly claustrophobic or something?” Michael asks, because what the _fuck_. Alex starts to struggle to stand back up, legs visibly shaking beneath him, unsteady. “Hey, stop. Alex, _stop_!”

He doesn’t mean to do it, he really doesn’t. But at a certain point he imagines it’s more instinct than intent. Alex’s body goes still as Michael takes him again with his powers. Holds.

He sees it, the exact moment Alex realizes he can’t move.

“Let me go.” There’s a manic glint in his eyes now, some dark desperation that niggles at something deep down in Michael’s chest. Alex looks past Michael’s shoulder, eyes fixed on the ladder and the hatch above. He’s fighting it, Michael can feel it. He’s fighting Michael’s hold. If Michael lets go he’s going to bolt, up the ladder and out into the storm and that… just doesn’t make any sense. No person in their right mind would risk getting killed by a tornado, stir crazies or not.

Which means…

Which means Alex isn’t in his right mind. Or in his mind at all.

Michael feels something like rage begin to churn in his gut. He tightens his hold, not enough to hurt but enough that whoever this is isn’t going to be able to fight him. It makes a choked noise and Liz rounds on him, hair whipping around her face.

“What are you doing? Let go of him!” she demands, sharp, and moves quickly to its side.

“Liz,” he grits out, teeth clenched in concentration. “Get away from him.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the words hit her, sees her head shaking slowly, not understanding. “What? Why?”

He takes a deep breath, focuses on keeping his powers in check.

“Because that’s not Alex.”

—

He’s exhausted, truly can’t remember ever being this bone-deep tired. He feels a bead of sweat slide from his temple down his jaw. He’s never tried to hold something for this long. It’s a delicate balance of exerting enough pressure to hold it in place but not nearly so much that he accidentally crushes it. Him. Alex.

“I got a signal!” Liz’s voice echoes down the ladder chute. He’d nearly passed out when he’d helped her lift the hatch, and the person wearing Alex’s face had used his momentary distraction to scramble several feet across the floor before Michael had pinned it in place again.

Liz drops down from the last rung and rushes to his side, the heels of her boots clattering on the concrete. She presses a bottle of acetone into his outstretched hand and he tries to concentrate on uncapping it but that, coupled with the effort of maintaining his hold, proves more difficult than anticipated. His hand starts to shake.

“The storm is starting to clear, we’re just in a thunderstorm watch now. No touchdowns near here.” Liz pulls his hand toward her and pops the cap off for him. Her hair and shoulders are damp from the rain. He brings the bottle to his lips and she steps back hastily, narrowly avoiding getting splashed as he gulps down two thirds of the bottle in one go. The strain eases. Some.

“I called Kyle.”

“And Isobel?”

“And Isobel. They’re on their way. Thank god Kyle isn’t on call tonight.”

“Good.” He’s not sure how long he can keep this up if Alex - not Alex - keeps fighting him. He supposes they could just leave him down here and lock the hatch… but so much of their research is down here, not to mention the console. No, not an option.

Liz’s brows furrow and she reaches to wipe Michael’s forehead with the sleeve of her jacket. “Michael, you’re sure about this? I mean, maybe he -”

“No,” he says. “Something isn’t right here. He wanted to leave so badly that he’d risk killing himself and us to do it? No. That’s not Alex. And that,” he swings his free arm at the prone form on the floor. “Is not Alex.”

Liz searches his eyes for a long moment and must find what she’s looking for because her brow smooths and she determinedly strides away from him. She rummages through several drawers and comes back armed with a hand full of zip ties.

“Okay, then,” she says. “Hold him still.”

—

By the time Isobel arrives with Valenti in tow it’s well and truly dark outside, but the worst of the storm seems to have passed. Their hair and clothes are dry, if not a little windblown.

The thing wearing Alex’s face is zip-tied to a solid steel pipe protruding from the wall above its head. The moment Michael had released his strangle hold he’d started talking.

_“Why are you doing this? I told you I’m fine.”_

_“This is all a misunderstanding, I can explain everything if you just untie me.”_

_“You guys, this isn’t funny, I have to go to the bathroom.”_

_“Guerin, I swear to_ god _if you don’t untie me.”_

_“Liz, come on, I’m not kidding around anymore.”_

_“Let me go or you_ will _regret it.”_

It’s still thrashing, a ring of sweat dampening the neck of its shirt, legs restlessly scrabbling at the floor. Michael can’t hardly stand to look at it, his stomach roiling with discomfort. Whoever it is with their hands on the controls, it’s still Alex. Alex’s struggling body, Alex’s pained face, Alex’s wide eyes.

Kyle’s eyes are equally as wide as he takes in the scene. “Jesus Christ, this looks like the setup to a _Saw_ movie.” His voice is light but Michael can tell by the tense set of his shoulders, the way he subtly steps in front of Liz, that he’s as disturbed as Michael himself.

Isobel comes to stand at his shoulder. “You’re sure about this?”

“Just get in his head, see if you can find out what’s going on. Or better yet, give whoever it is the boot.”

She squeezes his arm as she passes and goes to sit cross-legged in front of it, carefully out of reach of its thrashing legs.

“Isobel, please,” it says, but she ignores it, tips her head low.

He sees her body go still and knows without having to see her face that she’s begun. But no sooner has she gotten started when her whole body recoils with a jolt and they all jump, startled.

“Fuck,” she says, and shakes her head as though to clear it. She tilts it side to side like a prize fighter, her ponytail swinging, and leans forward again. After only a moment she slumps back, gasping. Valenti rushes to her side and pulls her back before she hits the floor. Michael moves without thinking; sees blood on her lips, watches it leak from her nose. She leans back on one hand and absent-mindedly wipes the blood on her sleeve.

“It’s… nothing,” she says, sounding like she’s just run one of her ten milers.

He drops down next to her. “What do you mean ‘nothing’? I know someone is in his head, Is, I know it. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

She looks up at him, eyes like a rolling thundercloud. “I mean _nothing_ , Michael. It’s nothing, it’s just a wall, nothing I can grab onto, nothing I can see or feel. It’s like -” she breaks off with a growl of frustration.

Liz presses Michael’s discarded bottle of acetone into her hand, helps her lift it to her bloodstained mouth. “What?” she asks. “It’s like what?”

The two share a long look, and Isobel rests her hand on top of Liz’s where it holds her wrist. “It’s like he’s not even there, or like he’s locked behind a wall so high I can’t see a way through. I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s like trying to climb a wall of sheer glass.”

“Guerin,” it cries, and Michael can’t help but look. “Guerin - _Michael_ \- I’m begging you, _please_. You have to let me go.”

And _fuck_ if that doesn’t still hurt.

He stands and backs away, moves to the corner where the walls come together and just breathes, pushes his fingers through his hair, pulls in a few deep lungfuls of air and it just continues to call for him.

“What about the powder, the yellow powder?” Valenti asks suddenly. “That stuff nixes alien powers, right? Can’t we get some of that and - ” he mimes sprinkling something onto the floor.

“No,” Liz says, her head now resting in her hands. “It would only work if we had the alien doing the possessing, it won’t work on the host. Alex is still human, it won’t have any effect on him.” She gets up and starts to walk the room. “What I don’t understand is why they aren’t letting him go. Obviously he’s not hiding anymore, and there’s no benefit at this point in -” She breaks off, muttering to herself inaudibly as she paces herself around in circles.

“So what do we do?” Valenti asks, and he’s pacing now, too. “Knocking him out wouldn’t do any good, right? I mean that’s how it worked with- ” He falters, only for a moment, but it’s enough for Michael to track the way his head swivels to Isobel before he gamely presses on. “That’s how it worked before, isn’t it? By causing blackouts and exploiting them? And we can’t just keep him locked up down here forever, he’ll tear himself apart. Maybe if we - ”

Michael watches as Valenti turns to look at it, watches as its eyes hone in on him. Watches as it starts up again, pleading with him, a never ending soundtrack of _Kyle this isn’t you, I know you want to help me, Kyle_ please _, you’re my friend, we used to play together._ Watches as Valenti’s face goes paler still.

“This is tor-” He turns away again, rubs his hands over his face. He doesn’t have to say what _this_ is. They all know.

“Not forever,” Isobel says from where she’s still sitting on the floor, nursing the acetone bottle. “It wouldn’t be forever.” There’s a glint of determination in her eyes that Michael recognizes all too well lately. “We all have limits to our powers, even if we don’t know what they are yet.”

“So we wait it out,” Michael says, and he feels so fucking helpless it makes him want to put his fist through something and make it give. He feels the weight of four pairs of eyes on him. He looks at it, hunched and wild eyed. “It’ll have to let him go eventually.”

He steps out of the corner, and it’s only when he unclenches his fists that he feels the pain caused by the uneven crescents his jagged nails have left on his palms.

“Until then… Valenti, you got a sedative in that fancy doctor bag of yours?”

—

Michael had wanted to cover his ears, drown it out somehow. It had continued to struggle madly, and Michael was so fucking tired but there’s no other options available to them. He’d taken a few deep breaths and focused his powers, forced it still. His hold had been weak, and he could feel it still fighting him the whole time. _I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,_ he’d thought, and choked back the bile in his throat.

_“Please, Michael, don’t you love me? You’re hurting me!”_

He’d tamped down on the hysterical scream that had been threatening to tear loose from his throat for hours, and Michael had held him as still as he could while Kyle had jabbed him, quick and painless.

“A fairly mild muscle relaxant,” he’d said. “It’s not going to hurt him but it should keep him from hurting himself at least.”

And so they wait.

And wait.

He drags the cots out from the back and sets them up, and they each take turns at least making an attempt to doze. It’s admittedly difficult over the sound of its constant vocalizing. It oscillates between coercion, pleading, and outright hostility, its threats peppered with creative cuss words. And he knows it’s not Alex, he _knows_. But whatever part of his brain that is still, a decade later, hard-wired to want to protect him makes it an exercise in pure, unfiltered agony. His skin crawls with the restless energy of inactivity.

As the hours tick by with little change they trade off going topside, Isobel first, then Liz, then finally a reluctant Valenti, ever the concerned doctor, if only to get away from the sound of its pitiful, scraped-raw voice. A sick part of him knows that he’ll probably never get the sound of Alex’s screams out of his head. Just one more fucked up thing to add to his never ending collection of fucked up things.

“You sure you don’t want to come up for a little bit?” Liz asks him, just as the first birds start chirping in the sky above the open hatch. Her eye makeup is smudged around her tired eyes. She looks as exhausted as he feels.

“Nah,” he says, and his voice comes out gravely with stress and disuse. _Fuck,_ he wants a drink. “I’m good.”

She sits down next to him on the cot, leans into his side. “Are you sure? Maria’s bringing some food.” His head jerks up and she shuffles closer, close enough that their knees knock together. She lays her head on his shoulder and he feels her voice rumble through him when she speaks. “ _Hey_ , I know. But she’s his friend, too. She should know.”

He pulls in a deep breath, exhales the word, “Yeah.” Her hair smells like flowers.

A moment passes before Liz says, “You know you don’t have to do this, right? Take this all on yourself? Whatever’s happening right now, it isn’t your fault.”

Maybe not. Maybe not directly, and Michael doesn’t know who is responsible for this, he thought they were done with this shit after Noah, after - but when he finds out who is responsible he honestly doesn’t know what he’ll do. Even thinking about it in the abstract makes something ugly start to froth to the surface, something he hasn’t felt since -

For a long moment they sit, enjoying a rare moment of silence before Isobel’s voice echoes down the hatch. Liz stands, squeezes his shoulder bracingly, and goes.

“Maybe you should take a break, Guerin,” Valenti says, and his voice startles him. He’s laying on the other cot, back to the rest of the room, and he’d been so still for so long Michael had assumed he’d fallen asleep.

“I said I’m good,” Michael growls, and stands, restlessness forcing his legs into action. Because Alex doesn’t get to take a break. That’s his body over there, half limp and sluggish but still struggling, straining. _Hurting._

Years ago he’d come across a coyote that had gotten itself caught in one of old man Foster’s traps. He’d stood there and watched as it writhed and yowled, frantic to get away but powerless to do so, blood pouring from the gory wound on its leg. It had tired before his eyes, weakening, quieting, but its eyes had been panicked and wild. It had struggled right up until one of the other ranch hands had put a bullet in its skull.

There’s a clatter behind them on the ladder and Liz climbs down, Isobel and Maria right behind her. He looks away, draws a long, bracing breath. When he looks up Maria’s already watching him, her dark eyes filled with something like concern. She has a paper bag clutched in one hand, top rolled down into a worn crinkle. There are still so many things left unsaid between them, and he owes her that much, if for nothing else then for keeping their secret, but _fuck_ , he can’t do this, not now. Not while -

She sniffs, hefts the bag. “I brought egg sandwiches,” she says, and her gaze has softened, if only a bit, her mouth quirking into a smile he recognizes; playful, but deliberate and careful. “And you’d better eat it, because I did not drive all the way over here at whatever the fuck o’clock in the morning for you to let this get cold, you ungrateful ass.”

She meets his eyes and it’s enough. For now, it’s enough.

She moves to put the bag on one of the tables, eyes tracking around the room, likely taking in the myriad of strange things he’s collected over the years. Not to mention the half-constructed kaleidoscopic hunk of alien tech.

She goes still when she sees it, laboriously writhing in the corner, and she lets out a little gasp, her hand raising to cover her mouth.

“Kyle gave him a sedative, that’s why he looks like that,” Liz says hurriedly, and she takes Maria’s elbow. “Sorry, I know it’s, uhh, I should have given you a heads up on exactly…” she breaks off, seems to be searching for words. “I thought you should be here, too.”

Maria absently reaches to take her hand; squeezing, something unspoken passing between them. She walks toward it, pulling Liz with her, and he sees her hand come up to her chest and hang there, fluttering, clutching, as she turns away, her face awash with emotions, one right after the other, none of which Michael can pin down.

“He’s scared,” she says, so quietly it’s barely more than a whisper.

Michael leans forward, nearly coming off the cot. “What did you say?”

Maria shakes her head, clutching at Liz’s hand still in hers. “I feel… _fear_. I can’t explain it - I just - it’s fear and desperation and-” she breaks off, clutches at her sweater, pulls it tighter around her.

“And what?”

A shudder goes through her frame that’s so powerful Michael can feel it from ten paces. She looks up, her expression drawn. “ _Hunger_.”

It startles them all by jerking its legs, pulling hard against its restraints, and Liz and Maria jump back with a shout. Michael is standing without conscious knowledge of how he got there, heart thudding painfully behind his ribcage.

Valenti sighs shakily and reaches for his bag. “Probably time for another dose,” he says. He meets Michael’s gaze and jerks his head toward it. “Guerin? Can you -”

He’s so tired. He’s so goddamn tired that when he concentrates, focuses what little energy he has left on trying to hold it down, the edges of his vision go dim for a moment and he has to stop.

“Gimme a minute,” he groans, and tries to breathe through it.

“Let me do it,” Isobel says, and steps forward.

“No, just give me a damn second,” Michael says.

“Michael, let me -”

It screams.

Alex’s body starts to convulse, jack-knifing nearly in half with the force of it. They all jump back, startled, and Michael tries to hold it down, he does, but he’s just so fucking tired and he can’t concentrate when Alex - it - is screaming like that. It starts jerking, twitching, legs flailing, eyes rolling, but it’s not struggling to get free now, no, it’s more like it’s lost control of Alex’s body. He drops to his knees, pushes himself as close as he can get without risking getting a stray boot to the face. Isobel crouches at his side.

He turns to her, and he feels the exhaustion edge the brink of hysteria. “Is, why the hell won’t this fucker let him go?”

“I - I don’t know,” Isobel says, her voice unsteady, clearly disturbed. Her eyes track rapidly around the room like she’s trying to find the answer written somewhere there. “It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe - maybe they’re trapped somewhere like Noah was? Maybe - ”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Liz says, and the tone of her voice makes the bottom of Michael’s stomach drop out. Disgust. Horror. Shock. “What - ”

“What the _hell_ is that?” Valenti this time, sounding equally horrified. He jerks forward like he’s going to intervene, but holds back, looking quickly to Liz and back, face caught somewhere between panic and disgust.

Michael turns and Alex’s body has stopped moving and something - some _thing_ \- is leaking out of Alex’s ear.

At first he thinks it’s some kind of viscous fluid, a milky, almost translucent substance the color of dirty dishwater, and he can feel the painful _thud_ of his heart beneath his ribcage like it’s trying to tear itself free.

It’s at that moment that he realizes it’s not a fluid at all, it’s _alive_. It crawls, wriggles, writhes its way out of Alex’s ear and down his neck, leaving a shiny trail of thin, watery blood. Alex’s body jerks again, but it’s not the mad, miserable struggle of moments earlier, it’s more like a drowning man’s first gasp of air above the surface. His eyes are open and alert, and with a start Michael realizes he’s desperately trying to dislodge the _thing_ on his neck.

Before he can think to speak, or move, or do anything more than stare in abject horror, Alex wriggles his arms above his head, wrists stained with dried blood, holds them as high as he can reach while still hobbled, and slams them down on the pipe once, twice, and on the third time the zip tie breaks with an audible snap. Alex’s hands are at his neck in an instant and the thing hits the floor, still wriggling grotesquely.

Michael is peripherally aware that there’s commotion behind him. Liz is rushing around the room, Valenti rummaging in his bag, Isobel and Maria are moving behind him, their heels audible over their collective, gasping breaths. Michael himself can hardly breathe, can only watch with a kind of morbid fascination as Alex, wrists bloody and still partially drugged, uses the pipe to haul himself to his feet - weight uneven on his good leg - and make a lunge for the nearest work table.

He clings to it, sweaty palms sliding on the slick metal surface, but it’s enough to give him the leverage he needs to heave himself after the thing as it half skitters, half slithers across the floor, a line of moisture trailing across the floor in its wake. Alex lifts his foot and before anyone can say or do anything at all he brings it down, hard. There’s a wet _squelch_ as the creature is crushed beneath his boot.

Alex collapses back to the floor, shaking, heaving breaths between clenched teeth. With some effort he lifts his head, sweaty hair a riotous mess, and their eyes meet.

“Michael.”

He’s different. He doesn’t know how he knows, but something in him begins to hum like a struck tuning fork, something resonant deep down inside him, and he knows this is Alex the same way his feet know the way back to Foster ranch, the same way he knows his mother’s smile. He reaches without thinking, the tips of his fingers touching Alex’s on the cold concrete.

“ _Alex.”_

Tears pool in Alex’s eyes and track freely down his cheeks, seemingly unnoticed. “ _Fuck,_ ” he says, and falls back against the leg of the table. He swipes a palm over his ear and it comes away wet.

“I could see everything, hear everything, _feel everything_.” He shudders, and his face is a sickly, ashen white. His eyes track the room, take in Liz and Valenti, still frozen mid-task, Isobel, standing with Maria half pushed behind her, and when he meets Michael’s eyes again Michael feels himself recoil at the weight of it.

Alex’s mouth works for a moment and a sound like a choked off sob escapes before he tamps down on it. “But I couldn’t _move_. I couldn’t _speak_. I couldn’t stop it - ”

Michael feels sick. He’s felt sick all night, oscillated freely between fury and helplessness and nausea, but this time he thinks he might actually vomit as he watches Alex start rhythmically flexing his fingers over and over. Like he’s making sure he still _can_.

“How long?” Isobel asks, and her voice is a ruinous mess.

Alex turns to look at her, shakes his head slowly before his gaze drops to his lap. No, not his lap. His _leg._

He sees it hit them all differently. Maria with her hand white-knuckled over her chest, mouth agape. Liz with her eyes closed as though in pain. Kyle, medical bag still clutched in his hand, the other over his face. Michael’s whole body feels numb and disconnected.

And Isobel - Isobel’s face is a mask of pure horror, her eyes haunted. She unsticks her lips. “Since your injury?”

“Since I got home to Roswell,” he says. A tear drips from his chin to the dusty floor.

Over a year. All that time he’s been trapped in his own body, paralyzed, unable to move or speak or fucking blink, while some _thing_ used his body to -

Michael’s fists clench so hard he feels the bones in his hands grind together. These hands had touched Alex. He’d kissed him, held him, _fucked_ him, and it had reciprocated every touch while Alex - the real Alex -had been powerless to stop any of it; couldn’t fight or yell or even tell him ‘no’. He doesn’t know how Alex can even stand to be near him after -

“What - what is that thing?” Liz asks, and everyone turns to her.

Alex takes a deep breath, says, “They can read our memories, our thoughts. They know what we know, they can be anyone and you’d never know it. Not until -” he breaks off, his body still shaking with residual tremors. He draws a steadying breath. “Not until they take you.”

“They?” Liz says, and Michael doesn’t know how a voice sounds so steady and so wrecked at the same time. “There’s more of them?”

“Dozens. Hundreds, probably. They congregate to feed but I don’t know… there could be more even than that.” He looks down suddenly, to the wet stain on the floor, the place where he’d crushed the creature into mush. “I’m - I probably shouldn’t have done that,” he says, and the words come out slightly hysterical. “You could have -”

“Alex, it’s okay.”

“No, listen,” he says. “Something is coming. When it was dying it - it imprinted some of its memories on me, I think. They’re preparing for something, they’re growing their numbers. They want important people, people in high places. They wanted me near you, all of you.” His eyes sweep over them. “We have to - ”

“Alex, you need to rest, let Kyle check you over at least - ” Maria says, voice choked.

But he’s shaking his head now. He grits his teeth and laboriously hauls himself to his feet, steadies his bad leg as best he can; takes one shaking step, then two, toward the ladder and the open air above.

Michael is moving after him before he can think to stop himself. “Hey, what are you doing?”

When he meets Michael’s gaze Alex’s eyes are tempered steel and liquid flame.

“We have so much work to do.”

—

**Author's Note:**

>  _hey nielrian,_ you might be asking, _did you make a dumb partially canon-compliant AU for a highly specific part of the most viscerally disturbing 90’s YA book series of all time?_ yes, yes i did. _did animorphs give you nightmares as a kid?_ yes, yes it did. _is jesse manes a yeerk?_ probably. _is anyone else we know a yeerk?_ maaaaaybe. _is the thing they’re preparing for a continuing war against aliens and the assimilation of earth?_ most assuredly. 
> 
> LISTEN i am fully aware of the fact that this makes little sense in the context of the show and i know that the more you think about it the less sense it makes okay so don’t @ me. also yes, this fic from alex’s point of view would be a helluva lot more fucked up and no i don’t wanna write it.
> 
> also you can blame [christchex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/christchex/pseuds/christchex) for this because she enabled me. also [notsodarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsodarling) for making sure it kinda made sense thx lady and to [ober-affen-geil](https://ober-affen-geil.tumblr.com/) for giving the BEST post-mortum and helping me greatly expand on this in my mind
> 
> also also that song lyric title has an extra double meaning now, don’t it? did you see what i did there didja didja??

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Panther](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23902081) by [JustAsSweet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAsSweet/pseuds/JustAsSweet)




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